Ian Machado Garry and Khamzat Chimaev got physical at UFC Qatar, and according to Garry, the altercation practically came out of nowhere.
It was a big night for Garry, who defeated former welterweight champion Belal Muhammad in the co-main event to make a push to be the No. 1 contender in his division. However, his win might be overshadowed by the aftermath that saw him on the receiving end of a backstage shove by Chimaev for reasons that are unclear.
Garry was asked about the incident at the evening’s post-fight press conference and he shared his account of events.
“I went up to [Arman] Tsarukyan,” Garry said. “I congratulated him. I went to Khamzat, I said, ‘Hey champ, what’s up? When are we going to see you back?’ He goes, ‘I don’t know, brother, whenever. Smash.’ Cool, sweet, slaps me on the back, I’m like, alright, cool. Security guy gets in front of us, I’m like, ‘We literally were just cool with each other, he’s not going to fight me.’ And then that childish energy comes out.
“‘Yeah, f*ck you, brother, f*ck you,’ boom, he tries to push me. I just turned around and went, ‘You’re meant to be a champion of this sport. You’re a child. You’re taking away from your friend’s win over here. How about you calm down, slow down, and have a bit of respect for your friend over here rather than trying to steal the headlines.”
The situation didn’t escalate much further beyond the shove as the fighters were quickly separated. Garry didn’t appear to show any aggression to the UFC middleweight champion, so he’s had to develop his own theory as to why Chimaev suddenly turned on him.
“You want the honest truth? It’s little dick energy,” Garry said. “‘I need to show the world I’m tough.’ You’re the champion of the world. No one needs to see you be tough. You don’t need to have these anger management issues. Just be a man.
“Sorry. I’ll get him one day.”
According to TheMacLife, Chimaev claims it was Garry who initiated the physicality by jokingly punching him in the back first.
“You know this guy, trying to be Conor but never gonna be Conor,” Chimaev said during Tsarukyan’s post-event scrum.
In all likelihood, that feud will stay unresolved with both fighters having their own business to take care of. Chimaev is yet to book his first middleweight title defense, and Garry is busy campaigning to emerge from the increasingly crowded welterweight title picture and be booked to face champion Islam Makhachev.
A move to 185 pounds could happen someday, Garry says, but not anytime soon.
“Listen, I’m going to tell you the same story I tell everyone when I think about moving up to middleweight,” Garry said. “I’ve trained in Kill Cliff, Fla. Everybody here knows Gregory Rodrigues. When I stand in front of that man, I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’s not a good idea to move up to middleweight.’ He is absolutely massive and when I look at that I’m like, I’m 28. Maybe when I’m 34, 35, and I’ve grown up and I’ve got a bit bigger, maybe my metabolism starts to slow down, I start to hit that hard. I could move up now and I’m absolutely going to be doing the same things I do. Smart, technical, elusive, fast, I could have success. But there’s a lot of people in this welterweight division that I need to beat and dominate.
“I want to do this GSP-style. I want to go through the division, dominate the division, beat every flash in the pan, beat every next No. 1 contender in the world, and dominate this division. I’m 28 years of age as of Monday this week. I have a decade of domination in this sport, I have no rush to move up to middleweight.”
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